High ampere-rated circuit breakers such as described within U.S. Pat. No. 4,001,742 entitled "Circuit Breaker Having Improved Operating Mechanism" are capable of interrupting several thousand amperes of circuit current at several hundred volts potential. Electrical terminals are used with such circuit breakers for connection with remote accessories for indication and control purposes. To facilitate connection with the connectors on the terminals, the insulative terminal assemblies are generally attached to the front part the circuit breaker case. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,680,672 and 4,743,715 each describe the attachment of terminal assemblies attached to the front part of the circuit breaker case.
The insulative assemblies are provided with threaded metal plates that are arranged in rows on a front part thereof. Connection between the internal components and the remote accessories is made by attachment of planar type connectors on the ends of insulated wire conductors. A common or ring type terminal screw is inserted through the spade type connectors and is threaded within one of the metal plates to secure the connectors together and to the assembly.
It would be economically advantageous to form the insulative terminal assemblies from a molding or extrusion process without having to insert the metal plate connectors. Accordingly, one purpose of the invention is to provide insulative terminal assemblies without metal plates and using the structure of the connectors per se to mechanically attach the connectors to each other as well as to the assemblies.